


Earthdust

by pieandsouffle



Category: Mortal Engines Series - Philip Reeve, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: A New Hope AU, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Graphic descriptions, Star Wars AU, mortal engines au, no prior knowledge of mortal engines necessary, some plot deviation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-13 22:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9144853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: It has been tens of thousands of years since the Sixty Minute War turned the planet into a nuclear wasteland. It has been five thousand years since cities first took to roaming the lonely earth. And it has been nineteen years since the beloved Empire destroyed the traitorous Jedi Order and united the planet's Traction Cities.But a rebel insurgency has threatened all the Empire holds dear. The Rebellion, the Red Storm, has vowed to bring down the Empire, avenge the Old Republic, and make the world green again.[ON PERMANENT HIATUS. I WILL BE REWRITING THIS ENTIRELY IN A SERIES OF DIFFERENT ONE SHOTS IN NON-CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER]





	1. The Tantive IV

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this AU for a long time, and the knowledge that Mortal Engines will finally - FINALLY - be turned into a film has inspired me.
> 
> I will be world-building as the story develops, so no knowledge of the Mortal Engines series is necessary. There is no set update schedule.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the scene is set, and imperial aircraft descend upon an airship of traitors.

            It was a very dry day. Drier than most city-dwellers could remember, in fact, and there were six imperial airships descending upon the small Alderaani airship the _Tantive IV,_ which had been steadily tracking its way across the dusty skies of the Arkanis waste.

            In the more glorious years of the Empire, those directly following its remarkable and hasty ascension into power, it would never have bothered with the pursuit of airships belonging to such noble members of the Empire. The Empire, the great collective of Traction Cities, had once better spent its time sending ships of stormtroopers to every distant corner of the Earth, sent to colonise the most barbaric static settlements and make civilised the most savage Mossies who dwelled there. Its primary purpose had once been the eradication of the Old Republic’s traitorous Order of Jedi and to bring peace between the globe’s many Traction Cities.

            But lately, many threats had come looming up over the horizon for the Empire. The first (although it sounded such a trivial matter) was the lack of prey in the Core hunting ground. There had once been many enemy cities of the Empire that more powerful Traction Cities – such as Corellia, Naboo, and, of course, the lavish Coruscant – could eat for prey, taking the iron skeletons and powerful engines to enhance and make greater their own. But recently, prey of any sort – even meagre towns like Felucia or Anoat – had grown scarce. The cities were hungry, and the people’s restlessness had allowed a monstrous birth to be brought to light.

            The Rebellion was known by many names: Sometimes the Anti-Traction League, sometimes the Red Storm. Liga Antitracción in Alderaan, the Virodhee Shaahee Vidroh in Naboo. Names spilled in different languages from every city on the globe, and they all meant the same thing. The Rebellion was, to put it simply, a dangerous collection of Anti-Tractionists sworn on avenging the destruction of the Jedi Order and ‘reclaiming’ the world so that humans could live their lives like heathens scrambling in the cold mud of the Earth.

            When it first clawed its way into common knowledge, it was considered a joke at best. But then when the city Lothal reported an airborne phantom laying a catastrophic siege on imperial skies, the Empire was forced to realise that these rebels were armed, dangerous, and completely mad. Attempts were made to squash these pitiful rebels, but the unthinkable occurred – all over the world, insurgents began a hopeless battle against the peace and power of the Empire. The limpets of the Mon Cala ocean began savage attacks on amphibious cities; the engine districts of all Traction Cities were targeted by terrorists with frightening regularity; the skies were no longer safe.

            The Scarif battle was the final straw. A team of highly-trained terrorists targeted the archive city of Scarif, stealing away the ancient plans to the Empire’s last defense against their reign of terror. The matter was made only worse with the fact that the latest defector, and custodian of the stolen plans, was a renowned celebrity and of great importance to the Empire. It was a tragedy indeed for the Empire, that Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan had been seduced by the foolishness of the Rebellion.

***

            “Captain Antilles!” his co-pilot bawled over the sound of the raging wind through the shattered windows. “They’re catching up!”

            Captain Raymus Antilles grimly wiped his own blood from his cheek and the collar of his tan Alderaani uniform. “I know.”

            The mirrors, normally screwed tightly to the sides of the ship, were in splinters from the force of the imperial torpedoes. Antilles knew, even over the wind, and his relative blindness, that the Empire had caught up with them.

            “Get your pistols,” he ordered his second-in-command and the Alderaani guard hovering anxiously by the cabin door. “They’ve as good as got us. Make a fight out of it.”

            “Sir?”

            “Our orders from Prince-Consort Organa were to protect the Princess. And ensure the mission is successful. We know who we’re dealing with; the Princess doesn’t stand a chance if we don’t give her the time.”

            “Yes, Captain,” said the co-pilot. “I understand.”

            She and the lone Alderaani guard attacked the weapons closet and began distributing weapons to every panicked Alderaanian coming to report that the _Tantive IV_ was, essentially, screwed.

            Captain Antilles flipped a few switches and locked the wheel. There was no point in changing course now. But with a locked course, they might have a chance of getting just a few kilometres closer to wherever General Kenobi was. And then the Captain armed himself.

            He hesitated a moment at the door of the cabin, and then continued to make ranks with the others. He knew he wasn’t ever going to make it back to Alderaan.

* * *

            Princess Leia Organa had found her way to the cargo hold with an air-pistol clutched tightly in her hand when she first felt the docking clamps seize hold of the _Tantive’_ s fragile gondola. The tremors shook the gondola so it swung like a pendulum, the deck’s mottled wood (once belonging to an authentic Republic-era Nabooan liquor cabinet, with the wine stains to prove it) ringing up her legs and rattling her teeth inside her skull. She did her very best to ignore the impending doom – to be perfectly honest, it was completely expected and she found herself mildly surprised that the _Tantive_ had managed to dash three-hundred kilometres away from the incriminating scene at Scarif before they were caught. She ignored the knocking and the air-pistols shots that rang out from the gondola, instead focussing every ounce of her attention on something far more precious than her life.

            Leia rolled up a sheaf of furry-soft recycled paper into a long and neat cyclinder and placed it, with the utmost care, into a shiny message tube. This itself was resealed into a slightly larger and thoroughly dented one for good measure, and then wrapped in an unassuming old canvas bag. She then carried this bag to a large chunk of oily metal cosily tucked between two large water barrels.

            “Artoo,” she whispered, and the oily chunk of metal opened – or rather, _turned on_ – two enormous flashlight eyes, and rose on iron legs.

            Artoo was one of the smallest (if not _the_ smallest) Stalkers - a reanimated corpse - ever built. He was, standing, the size of a six-year-old child, with an iron shell encasing the flesh still strung to his fragile, organic bones. Great blue searchlights peered out of the smooth metal death-mask that wrapped around his skull in a makeshift face, no mouth or nose or any orifice to be seen. The eyes, however initially alarming, were large and familiar.

            “Artoo,” said Princess Leia.

            “Artoo replied with a whirring buzz emanating deep from within his skull. Princess Leia did not know how to speak such a vague language, but she certainly knew Artoo, and Artoo knew every language in the world.

            “I need you to take these plans,” she told him softly, the canvas bag outstretched towards him, “and I need you to bring them to General Kenobi.”

            Another buzz; this time a question.

            “General Kenobi’s last known location was the Arkanis wastes, right below us. Investigate the towns and cities in the area. Find him, and give him the plans. And,” she added, tearing a small piece of cloth from her white dress, “give him this.” She scrawled a message across the fabric, folded it neatly into a square, and handed it to the Stalker.

            Artoo reached up one hand, the birdlike bones and tendons clearly visible through the dead skin, and pulled forward his torso casing and wedged the plans into the dead cavity of his chest. The armour snapped back into place just as the doors to cargo bay burst open and a fast-moving figure appeared.

            Princess Leia lowered her air-pistol that she barely remembered raising and sighed. “Thripeio.”

            “Your _highness_!” Cee Thripeio, her perpetually hysterical translator gasped, eyes open wide beneath his round gold-rimmed spectacles. “Your highness! The _Tantive_! We’re under attack from the Empire!”

            “I know,” said Princess Leia with an understanding (if irritated expression on her face. “Now shut the door before someone finds us!”

            Cee Thripeio was a tallish and thin man, losing both colour and quantity of his pale (and formerly luxurious, as he was oft to remind people) hair. His main job in Alderaan was to act as a translator, a task at which he was most proficient. The importance of his role balanced out his woeful knowledge of the pre-Empire era, surprising for a man of his not-insignificant years. His neat Alderaani uniform was already askew, as were his glasses, and he was most clearly distraught.

            “I’m sorry! Of course! How stupid of me!” He fumbled for a moment with the latches, and closed the doors with a lot more noise than Leia had hoped for.

            “It’s all right,” she replied wearily as he began extravagant and profuse apologies. Her eyes flicked between him and the doors. “I need you anyway.”

            “Your highness! It would be the highest honour! Why, it – ”

            “You need to look after Artoo,” the Princess interrupted.

            Thripeio gaped. Then he blinked, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard her quite right. Surely he had misheard? “Your highness? Look after Artoo?”

            Leia nodded.

            “Look after … a Stalker?”

            “Honestly, Thripeio, you can’t expect me to believe that you’ve never worked with Artoo before … You’re the only one who can talk to him and properly understand him; I mean, you can understand most languages. And Thripeio, when I tell you that it is _monumentally_ important to ensure Artoo comes to _no harm_ , I hope you’ll do your best to protect him.”

            “Why,” said Thripeio weakly, “of course, your highness. I merely thought that – perhaps a _Stalker_ would be more apt for this mission.”

            “Do you see any Stalkers aboard, Thripeio? No.”

            “Except for Artoo, your highness.”

            Leia couldn’t resist rolling her eyes.

            Artoo, unlike many of the more traditional Stalkers, did not possess and shielded weaponry. No retractable knives as claws, no superhuman strength, no darts, arrows, death-frisbees, air-pistols to be seen or found. They simply weren’t there. All Artoo could do was administer a rather sharp electric shock when threatened. Not enough to penetrate the thick glastic armour of the stormtroopers.

            He was not built for violence. He was built to harbour ideas. Not a machine of destruction, but one of remembering, strategizing, formulating, thinking.

            “Artoo has no sophisticated defences, Thripeio. Look, we’re out of time. Artoo knows his own mission. Do what you can to aid him. Get in the balloon, and _go_.”

            “Your highness …” Thripeio tried again, but Artoo chose that moment to implement his limited strength by walking directly into Thripeio’s neatly dressed knees, sending him flying backwards into the escape-craft.

            “Good luck,” Princess Leia said, turning towards the door, grim determination written all over her fine features. Artoo warbled something at her. She smiled.

            “Thank you, Artoo.”

            She reached for a lever – Thripeio had seconds to steel his stomach for the inevitable drop from the gondola – and then they were plummeting towards the ruined earth. He looked up to see the cargo hold’s door fly open, a flash of light, and the Princess stumbling to the deckplate.

            “I have a terrible feeling about this,” he said miserably.

            Artoo beeped affirmative.


	2. A Princess, Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Princess Leia finds herself having an unpleasant confrontation with the Stalker Vader.

            Princess Leia did not remember much after she watched Thripeio and Artoo disappear into the Arkanis wastes. She had a brief recollection of swearing mightily as the cargo hold was flooded with stormtroopers, her air-pistol jerking in her hand so forcefully it nearly broke her wrist, and a sudden blaze of pain in her ribs. Then everything went dark, and she could recall nothing after that.

            She woke to find herself dangling limply over the shoulder of a stormtrooper, armour pressing agonisingly into a welt on her ribs.

            “ – a princess, I mean, you wouldn’t expect one to weigh _that much_ …” the trooper carrying her grumbled to his companion.

            “’S like my grandmother,” another stormtrooper said.

            Leia opened her eye a crack to see her air-pistol in the hands of the second trooper. She was idly swapping the Alderaani pistol and the small imperial carbine from hand to hand, apparently at ease among the bodies of Leia’s crew. Leia felt a hot blaze of fury deep inside her chest.

            “She’s so skinny and shrivelled, but weighs about as much as Coruscant entire Gut. Got no idea where she puts away the food.”

            The first trooper laughed, and shifted Leia. His shoulder plate dug into her ribs and she let out an involuntary hiss of pain.

            The stormtrooper stopped dead for a moment, made an annoyed grunt, and swung her down from his shoulder.

            There was an explosion of pain in the back of her skull, and her vision went black for a moment. It returned after a few woozy, frightening seconds, and she found herself dizzy and semi-blind, weakly held upright by the trooper.

            Leia didn’t remember hitting her head, but she supposed she must have after she was shot with one of their rubber bullets. She must have reeled back from the force of the bullet and struck her head on something – probably the unforgiving Nabooan liquor cabinet.

            The trooper was almost the only reason she was standing even close to upright, but she summoned all her strength and straightened up, wrenching her arm from his grasp. The action almost sent her toppling to the ground again, but she forced herself to remain upright through sheer willpower and stubbornness.

            “Where are you taking me?” she asked in her most intimidating voice. The effect was partially ruined by her inability to focus on the stormtroopers.

            “The commander, miss,” the female trooper offered, and Leia bestowed upon the woman her worst glare.

            “The correct term of respect is ‘your highness’,” she said coldly. The trooper seemed taken aback, before she seemed to realise that she was the one who holding the weapons, and not the princess. She raised the carbine, and jabbed it into the small of Leia’s back.

            “Start walking.”

            Leia gave them both one more withering look, and started to walk, chin held high.

            Feeling so lightheaded, Leia found that the journey to the flight deck took far longer than it ever had before. Or maybe it was the bodies littering the corridors of the _Tantive_ that made the trip seem longer. Past every door and corner she was greeted by the sight of a motionless arm, or blood staining the wood of the deck. The stench of death was almost unbearable, and only got worse as they approached the flight deck. But as they neared, she recognised that it wasn’t the tang of new blood. It was the stench of old, rotting meat.

            Leia found herself oddly calm as she looked upon the body of Captain Antilles, watching the door to the flight deck blindly from his sprawled position on the ground. His throat had been crushed. And she realised who it was that had slaughtered her crew.

            She recognised the commander – really only in position, the actual commander was hovering nervously behind this man’s shoulder. In the sense of titles, he was no soldier – he was lacking evern the most modest military title. He might have had one once. But that would have been a whole different life ago.

            The seven-foot figure towering over Leia’s slight form reeked with the smell of dead flesh, and the black cloak he was wreathed in failed to hide the tubes and cords jutting savagely from a bared, dead skull.

            She gave herself a moment to steel herself, and then looked into the creature’s face.

            Leia had seen that face before, and had recalled it to the surface of her memory to prepare herself, but the sight still shocked her.

            Like Artoo, this Stalker possessed a deathmask. But the difference was that although Artoo’s covered his entire head, hiding every centimetre of old flesh from the world, this creature’s mask was incomplete. The black, pockmarked metal coated the skin of the dead man’s forehead, torn, jagged edges showing the brutal remnant of the man’s face. Two bloody, bulbous orbs shone out from the eye sockets, set deep into the Stalker’s skull. Below that, part of the corpse’s jaw had been removed, and a triangular grille had been melded into the chin.

            The emaciated face seen after the shock of the eyes and the grille was grey and withered, like a mummified corpse. Which was just what the Stalker was: a corpse, walking.

            “Lord Vader, I should have known.” Leia mustered every ounce of cold civility and mockery she could. “Only you would be so bold as to attack an Alderaani vessel. Or so stupid. Attacking a diplomatic vessel on a mission of _peace_ … I don’t believe the senate will be so forgiving of that, especially in the current troubling cl – ”

            “DO NOT PLAY GAMES WITH ME, YOUR HIGHNESS. I HAVE TRACKED THIS SHIP FROM SCARIF. THIS WAS NO MERCY MISSION. WE KNOW YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF THE STOLEN PLANS. WHERE ARE THEY?”

            Her blood had started running icy in her veins at the mention of Scarif, and it took all her courage not to shudder at the Stalker’s voice. It grated and rattled, as different from Artoo’s innocent, familiar warbling, but like iron claws crushing bones; shrieked like an ill-tuned radio, and radiated an aura of complete and total indifference towards her life, the lives of the fallen, and for the Stalker’s own.

            This was a real Stalker. A machine pretending to be a man, a creature that had stolen the body of some poor, dead soldier and was wearing it like a sick costume.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, proud of her unshaking voice, and ignoring her sweating palms. “I’m a member of the imperial senate on a diplomatic mission – ”

            “YOU,” Vader said, “ARE A MEMBER OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE, A LIAR, AND A TRAITOR TO THE EMPIRE.” It came out in a low hiss, a monotone, and yet she could almost feel its callous, despairing nature radiating in waves of hatred. They washed over her and made her forget the roasting sun of the Arkanis wastes. She just felt cold.

            Vader spun on his heel, his joints hissing, and loomed over the actual commander, a timid-looking man who seemed to wish he was anywhere in the Empire rather than here. “Sir?” he asked meekly.

            “TAKE HER AWAY.”

            Leia knew her time was up, even through the crippling pain of her head. She gave him her most withering glare as a last resort, and allowed the stormtroopers to lead her away, blasters aimed directly at her head.

* * *

            The commander watched the princess stride away pridefully, looking somehow in charge despite her hopeless situation.

            “Holding her is dangerous,” he said queasily once he had summoned up the courage to speak to Vader. He didn’t look up into the Stalker’s face as the princess had, his gaze instead continually shifting back and forth between something fascinating and invisible at Vader’s shoulder and the body of the Alderaani captain cooling from its place on the deck.

            Vader did not reply.

            “If word gets out of her arrest, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the imperial senate.” His gaze flicked momentarily up to Vader’s face … or what was left of it.

            He regretted it immediately.

            The dead cheek tissue creased up under the lamps staring despairingly from the Stalker’s face. The commander was reminded, very uncomfortably, of a smile. That, or a frown. He wasn’t sure which he would prefer.

            “WORRYING ABOUT THE SENATE IS USELESS,” said Vader. “I WATCHED THE PLANS BE TRANSFERRED TO THE PRINCESS. SHE IS OUR LINK TO THEIR SECRET BASE.”

            “She’ll die before she’ll tell us anything.”

            “LEAVE THAT TO ME.” Vader had finally tired of their brief conversation. The commander felt his heart pound his ribs like a trapped rabbit.

            “And … my lord?” he managed, finally turning his face from Vader. “What should we inform the senate?”

            “SEND A DISTRESS SIGNAL. THERE WAS A TRAGIC ACCIDENT, AND ALL ABOARD WERE KILLED.”


	3. The Journey Through the Out-Country

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cee Thripeio suffers the desert with an indifferent companion.

            Cee Thripeio had always fancied that he would have made a superb pilot – one for the history-books, really – if only given the chance to prove himself. But considering the fact that he managed to crash the escape-shuttle after an embarrassingly short flight, he was forced to conclude that he perhaps _wasn’t_ destined to achieve international fame as an aging, yet dashing aviator.

            The somewhat-frantic flight from the _Tantive IV_ had taken them a sufficient distance from the imperials – over a distant, mountainous-looking shape that ended up being just a very large sand-dune – and out of sight … which was a far more important observation rather than the crashed ship.

            They had just soared over the dune when Artoo – obnoxious, attention-seeking Artoo – had claimed to know where they needed to head: in a different direction. Naturally, Thripeio had refused to hand over the wheel (hand over controls to a Stalker! Thripeio wasn’t insane, thank you very much!). A small brawl, a broken atmospheric regulator and a terrifying descent later, Thripeio and Artoo found themselves knee-deep in burning sand, gazing miserably at the hopelessly mangled shuttle. The shuttle moaned brokenly as the last remnants of hydrogen escaped the air-pocket in a long, thin hiss.

Artoo looked up at Thripeio, thick woollen hood obscuring his absence of features but for his lamp-eyes, and beeped out an irritated string of sounds that had Thripeio flushing in indignation.

            “I knew what I was doing!” Thripeio snapped. “It’s hardly my fault that the shuttle’s air-pocket was so dismally constructed that it shredded the instant it hit the sand! Quality is so utterly _lacking_ these days …”

            The torn remains of the air-pocket deflated as the last of the hydrogen disappeared into the air, leaving nothing behind but the waxed canvas settling into the sand like a blanket over a small child. The splintery wooden planks of the shuttle’s body were jutting out like great broken teeth. It was hopelessly broken, and utterly irreparable.

            Artoo whistled wryly, wondering whether the crash was due more to operator error than poor construction.

            “How _dare_ you!” Thripeio spluttered, mortally insulted. “You know full well we would have _never_ crashed if you hadn’t _attacked_ me! And I’d like to have seen you do a better job, you metal scrapheap!”

            Artoo stared at Thripeio for a few uncomfortable moments, and shifted his metals shoulders into a shrug. Thripeio huffed, and surveyed their surroundings with a jaundiced eye.

            The bitter reminder of Thripeio’s piloting debut and failure was still nicer to look out than the vast, desolate sand-scape before, behind, and all around them. All there was to be seen was a golden-brown wasteland reflecting the sun’s merciless rays right of the sand and into Thripeio’s face. He could feel every exposed centimetre of his flesh roasting like a duck cooking in a furnace.

            “This is _hellish!_ ” he announced bitterly, turning back to the Stalker to see if Artoo was suffering as much as he was. To his displeasure, he saw that by being dead, Artoo had managed to avoid all the discomfort of sunburn. He supposed that being a corpse would have its advantages over being alive. But whether it was worth being dead to avoid sunburn and peeling skin, Thripeio remained unconvinced.

            “How did we get into this mess?” he moaned as Artoo began probing his (now-dented) armour for damage. “I really don’t understand how. Are servants just made to suffer? We must be. It’s our lot in life.”

            There was a _snap_ as Artoo closed his torso cavity, and he countered Thripeio with a long, amused whistle.

            “’Not that bad’?” Thripeio repeated incredulously. “’ _Not that bad’_?! Have you taken a look at where we are?” He looked out at the vast emptiness threatening to consume them, and felt rising hysteria engulf him. “We’re – we’re on the _ground._ The _dirt!_ Like common _Mossies!_ ”

            Artoo beeped irritably.

            “Don’t get technical with me,” Thripeio snapped. “Not while we’re on the – the bare earth…”

            The thought of sharing the ground with anti-Tractionist earth-dwellers made his breaths come short and hard and fast in his chest. He distantly thought that it would be a good idea to think of something calming, like the trees on the upper levels of Alderaan, or kicking Artoo, but to despair about their circumstances was so much simpler. The sun was baking his flesh, and his anxiety was growing only more intense with every extra degree.

            Artoo warbled something too low for Thripeio to hear, and began slow steps towards the east, where the sun was steadily climbing in the sky.

            “Where are you going?” squawked Thripeio. The only thing _worse_ than being trapped out in the out-country with a Stalker would be being trapped alone. The thought of being abandoned out there made his heart pound faster in his skinny chest.

            Artoo didn’t turn back, but at least deigned to reply, as exasperated as it seemed.

            “Settlements?” Thripeio frowned and fiddled with his filthy spectacles. Sand had already clogged the joints; the arms were creaking and grating when he folded them. And he’d just gotten them replaced on Coruscant … and _very_ expensive they’d been too. “What makes you think there are settlements?”

            Artoo stopped walking with slow deliberation, turned his blank face (that curiously managed to convey emotion) towards Thripeio and let loose a long series of agitated whistles and hoots.

            “ _Language!_ ” Thripeio sifted through the expletives. “Alright, you malfunctioning little twerp. I’ll go this was too. But if it’s the wrong way, I hope you know that it’s _all_ your fault.”

* * *

 

            The trek got only harder as the day progressed. With every step Thripeio took, his feet were greedily swallowed up by the sand, and to raise them again was to raise a kilogram of sand. The area on the back of his head that his hair didn’t quite cover anymore felt as though a red-hot plate was being pressed against it, and sand was creeping and crawling through every crease and wrinkle in his clothes, which barely looked like the same crisp and new items he had put on when boarding the _Tantive IV_. They were filthy and sweaty, and the starched collar was drooping miserably, exposing his neck to the pitiless sun.

            He was absolutely miserable, and Artoo hadn’t seemed to notice.

            The Stalker had been about ten metres ahead of him for the journey so far, and that distance now threatened to yawn wider with every step.

            “Artoo.” Thripeio tried to shout at the Stalker, but the word came out in a hoarse croak. He licked his lips, summoned as much saliva as he could to assuage the dryness in his mouth, and tried again. “Artoo!”

            The Stalker turned its head, and stopped abruptly upon seeing the widening distance between them.

            “You’ve killed us both!” Thripeio gasped when he was close enough to see the faint glow of Artoo’s eyes under that hood. His spectacles slipped off his nose from the sweat dripping down his face; he barely managed to catch them. They were just as hot as the sand leaking into his boots. “Well, you’ve killed _me,_ and I won’t be surprised if you fall apart out here! There’s no town-tracks or towns in _sight_ , and – ”

            Artoo interrupted him with a hoot, and gestured towards the distance.

            Thripeio squinted and shielded his face with his hand. What was that, six or so dunes ahead? A tiny black box, just sitting at the top of the – no, no, it was moving towards them. It was difficult to see in the sun, and harder because of the distance, but it was definitely moving towards them, infinitesimally slowly.

           “Is that a town?”

           Artoo beeped affirmative, albeit smugly.

           “Yes, you seemed to have been right when you said this might have been the right way, now shut up.” Thripeio put his hand down and looked away. The sight of the air wobbling with heat was making him feel dizzy. “We’re still a great deal away, and they may not have even seen us! We’re not in a better position than before, you know.”

            Artoo gazed at him blankly for a few seconds, and then made the most exasperated grunt Thripeio had ever heard from him.

            “Don’t get snappy because you know I’m right!”

            Artoo merely shrugged his childlike shoulders and began the long walk to the distant town. Thripeio stared after him and huffed.

            “ _More_ walking, I expect,” Thripeio muttered to himself, taking a second to wipe sweat from his nose. “I suspect I’ll be walking for the rest of my life! Or even worse, associating with that Stalker! I can't think of one reason anyone would want to! As insufferable as he is redundant …”

            And with a last attempt to straighten his woefully ruined collar, Thripeio followed the custodian of the plans for the world’s most dangerous weapon.

 


End file.
